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Such a problem is very common in Windows systems.... Try to figure out what you recently installed on ur machine .. sometimes u install an application which doesnt fit well with other components in Windows Environment... Whenever u try to start windows explorer it gives an error message...isnt it.. .. A particular code of the newly installed application might be giving the problem...Also this is not the process running exactly otherwise the tools that u have used till now would have reported it... Try to repair ur windows explorer from ur boot CD ...
May be the things will work..

Sometimes you can't kill a process because it is link to a service. Try to see if the process is started by a service and stop the service. If that is not the case i normally use pskill you can find it here . It will work most of the time.

\"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.\"
\"The reason we are so pleased to find other people\'s secrets is that it distracts public attention from our own.\"
Oscar Wilde(1854-1900)

you could always try taskkill and tasklist (cmd line tools). They might just be the exec that taskmanager uses to kill things your tried to kill. Not sure. Another good cmd line tool I use is nkill, I've had some success with it in the past. Im gunna try the others that the people above me has recommended

Out of interest which process are you trying to stop? Some processes such as svchost.exe are external control processes and are often used by hackers.

Also it is possible to perminantley terminate processes, not sure if u can do it while the process is running (if it is a process that only appears when it hogs the cpu) but what u have to do is go into regedit...

this is what i had to do when i was having problems with the svchost.exe...

Please note: Any and all advice presented in this post is presented as is. I am in no way responsible if you should render your system disabled. I merely present this information as an effort to share knowledge I have accumulated from my own mishaps.

To know what services are launching svchost.exe, take a look at your services list in the administrative tools (start -> settings -> control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services). There will be a few things there that load that executable, most of them are rather innocuous. Not every one of the services listed will be using that file either. You will need to go through them one at a time and figure that out on your own. If you find one that you don't know about, research it and then disable it if you need to. If in doubt, you can always ask here.

You need to find the "Last Modified" time of the listed executable. To begin this do the following :

1. Open Regedit (start -> run -> type in regedit -> Press Okay)
2. Back up the registry (file -> Export Registry File -> Set the range to all -> Choose your save in directory -> give the file a name -> click okay)
3. Take a look at the following Reg Key : HKEY_LOCALMACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
4. Examine the values associated with Run. These are the items loading on boot. If you don't know what it is, then Google it. Once you know what it is, then either leave it or delete it. Either way, take note of the location of the exe cause you will be looking at the properties later on.
5. Take a look at the following Reg Key : HKEY_LOCALMACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/RunOnce
6. repeat step 4.
7. Take a look at the following Reg Key :
HKEY_LOCALMACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/RunOnce
8. Repeat step 4.
9. Take a look at the following Reg Key :
HKEY_CURRENTUSER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
10. Repeat step 4.
11. Take a look at the following Reg Key :
HKEY_CURRENTUSER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/RunOnce
12. Repeat Step 4.
13. Close your registry editor and start finding those executables you just took note of.
14. Once you locate the executables and examine the last modified times of them. If they are windows executables and the times don't correspond with you default install times, then you will probably want to re-extract them from your windows CD Learn how to extract files, or the i386 files if you have them. If the files are not Windows files, but distributed by some other company, perhaps an uninstall and verification of the removal of their exe is in order. Take a look at their install files and see if they provide you with a files/ time list.
You're kinda on your own from this point on as there is no simple answer that can be easily provided.